The first day you come up with the idea for your side hustle, you’re excited. Quietly. You’re also afraid to tell anyone. What if it’s dumb? What if it’s the dumbest dumb idea you’ve ever had? What if telling people will alert them to just how dumb you are? No, no one can know!
Days go by and turn into weeks. You start doodling logos. You start walking by empty store fronts and imagining, what if that was me? You look at books and imagine that being your photo on the cover. You think “by Cathy Davenport Lee” has a really nice ring to it.
A couple months go by and you decide to get yourself an LLC. What the hell. It feels exhilarating. It’s quickly followed by total panic. Now, you actually have to DO it. What if it’s stupid? What if everyone you respect is now going to watch you fail?
You get started in fits and spurts. You feel like you’re getting almost nothing done even though you’re spending hours on things like your website, your paperwork. Why is it all so complicated? Why is it so expensive? What is the point? Is this dumb? You flop down in your chair under the weight of these thoughts.
You finally get up the courage to tell a few people what you’re doing. Some of them are encouraging. One or two are skeptical, and your stomach drops. Have you just made the dumbest decision in the world? Is this incredibly stupid? You wonder again.
You feel terrified that nothing you do is good enough. So you decide to hire help. You get coaching, you go to classes. You work and work and work. You get a few products made. None of them feels right. None of them click.
You pour your heart into ad copy. You spend money putting it in front of people.
And no one buys a single, freaking, thing.
But some people sign up for your newsletter.
You decide to start a podcast too. What the hell.
You buckle down and try harder. What if this is stupid? By now, that thought is as loud as a rickety above-ground train, and comes by at random intervals when you least expect it. It’s like the J/Z.
But you keep going. A couple years in, you make some stuff just because you were trying to use up some accessories you bought for another (probably dumb) thing you’re trying to make. Wait…that looks kind of cute. You get more ideas and make more things.
You go to a market. You make some sales. Another and another one. You go back home and then get a sale from someone you’ve never met before. And then another one. It’s still not much, not nearly enough to break even, and definitely nowhere near enough to live on. You still don’t think it’s good enough. But it’s something.
You keep going.
What if this is all stupid? By now you know that question isn’t going to get answered. It’s not stupid for you. It means something. That will have to be enough. Maybe other people will believe it too, and maybe they won’t.
The goal is no longer to make people believe you know what you’re doing. The goal is to finish all the thoughts you started. The goal is to release your dreams into the world. Whether it’s worth something to someone isn’t your concern. It can’t be, because other people’s approval will never be good creative fuel. All you can do is hope that it matters to someone at some point.
Someday, I’ll have said all my words, sung all my songs, written all my books, drawn every picture, built everything in my head. Someday, this fever dream will end.
But not today.
XOXO,
Cathy